If we talk less about war in Ukraine, or even the presidential election in France, it is the turn of US interest rates to alarm the stock market. And not just a little bit… The Cac 40 fell more than 3% before raising the bar a bit, but still finished sharply at 2.21%, at 6,498.83 points, in trading volume that was pretty good with 4.5 billion euros. Since the beginning of the year, the index has again lost more than 9%.
The market is being swept up by fears of a continuation of inflation, which would force the US Federal Reserve to accelerate its monetary policy recovery. A few hours before the publication of the minutes of the last meeting of the FOMCthe statements of certain senior members of the institution warned the operators.
After Brainard, Harker
This Wednesday, Patrick Harker estimated that inflation is far too high. The chairman of the fed of Philadelphia fears inflation expectations are spiraling out of control” anchorage “, reports the Wall Street Journal, in other words that the price increase does not get out of hand. He joins the governor Lael Brainardthat Tuesday said that the “ main task is the fight against inflation, adding that from May the central bank will also have to tackle the rapid reduction of its balance sheet by nearly $9,000 billion in order to move its policy toward “ a more neutral attitude ” at the end of the year.
She also called for a half-point hike in Fed Funds interest rates next month, which in itself isn’t much of a surprise, even if ” Ms. Brainard is typically one of the most “dominant” members of the FOMC, notes Jeffrey Halley, market analyst at Oanda. If it went to the superhawks, the market would have to take that into account, and it did. The jar of honey EQ [assouplissement quantitatif] is about to be closed “, he adds. To United States, the yield on the 10-year bond is now approaching 2.63%, from 2.4% on Monday night. On the index side, the Dow Jones yields 0.8%. the Nasdaq composite fall, him, of more than 2.5%.
Many losers in the stock market
In France, the yield of the 10-year OAT crossed the 1.2% threshold for the first time since 2015, peaking at 1.2244% on Wednesday. The pay gap with the German Bund of similar maturity is at its highest level since the onset of the health crisis in March 2020. The move is fueled by the latest polls, which narrow the gap in voting intentions between the outgoing president, Emmanuel Macronand the National Rally candidate, Marine Le Pen† BNP Paribas† Societe Generale and Agricultural credit still lost between 2.4% and 3.4%.
Industrialists are also among the victims of the day. holy gobain lost 4.4%, Schneider Electric 5.1%, Stellantis 4.4% and Renault 3.8%. Like the few major tech and growth stocks on the rating, are weighed down by the prospect of a rapid rise in interest rates. Teleperformance fell 4.5%, Capgemini 3.9% and Dassault Systems 4.1%.
New sanctions against Moscow
On the Ukrainian front, new sanctions from the West were expected against the Russia† At the end of the afternoon, for example, the United States announced that the new list will for the first time contain individual sanctions against the two daughters of the Russian president, Katerina Tikhonovna and Maria Poutina. † We think many of Putin’s assets are hidden behind his relatives, which is why we focus on them. said a senior US government official. The wife and daughter of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are also targeted, as are former Russian President and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. Two of the country’s largest banks, Sberbank and Alfa Bank, will also be isolated for the first time, except for energy purchases. Finally, it is now completely forbidden for an American to invest in Russia, whether he resides or resides abroad.
Among the rare rises of the day, Thalesin defense, won 0.7%. intersection rose 2.2%. Kepler Cheuvreux raised its price target from 21.21 to 23 euros ahead of the quarterly results, citing performance ” firm in Brazil and France. Barclays is aiming for 22 euros, against 20.50 earlier. The pharmaceutical laboratory Sanofi took 1.4%.
